Burned Out
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Firefly or Phosphorus? Who is better? Firefly, that's who! Read and review!


Creation began on 07-23-12

Creation ended on 07-24-12

The Batman

Burned Out

A/N: I saw the episode _White Heat _from the fifth season of _The Batman_, and I must say how upsetting the ending was. Garfield/Firefly and Blaze seemed like the ideal couple that was on the wrong side of the law. And, personally, if I had to choose between Firefly and Phosphorus, I'd prefer Firefly. Let's try this and see how it turns out.

As Garfield, or rather, the former Firefly-turned-Phosphorus, stood silently in his special gas chamber that kept his powers under control, the defeated criminal felt effects of the biggest defeat he'd ever experienced before: Heartbreak.

"Lights out, huh?" He heard somebody. "More like burned out."

Whoever it was, they sounded like they were inside his cell.

"Who's there?" He demanded; although the lights were out, his body generated enough light to illuminate some of his environment, and revealed a person near a wall. "Who are you?"

Because the light was red, all Garfield could make out was a young man bathed in his red glow, wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt. The guy looked like a teen or young adult.

"You could say that I'm a guardian angel of sorts…if there's something about you that is a priority that I must tend to," the guy told him. "A thorn in your side that must be plucked out, a fly in your ointment that shouldn't be there, and a condition that must be mended. In other words, a mistake…that must be corrected, no matter what."

The mystery man then snapped his left hand's fingers and the lights came back on, revealing his other features that weren't revealed well under the red lighting of Phosphorus. He was just some African-American guy, a nonentity.

"Fire, the element that mankind gain possession and dominion over since the Stone Age," the man told him. "The evolution of fire, from torches to flashlights, lighters to welding tools…right to rockets and jet packs. But a person of fire? Even if the radiation you absorbed wasn't enough to cause a mutation, the amount that you did soak up should've killed you. But…as fate is a power that many people don't fully understand, you seem to be fated for something other than this fate that you've been dealt with."

Garfield felt intimidated by this man, and if it weren't for his cell keeping him in check, he'd probably use his accursed powers to reduce him to ashes.

"Your fear of me is a waste of time," the man told him. "If I wanted to hurt you or worse, I would've done so already. As I said before, there's a mistake that must be corrected. The mistake: Your current state. The correction: Undoing the cause."

"Undoing? You must be behind on current events, dude," Garfield told him. "If I had gotten help sooner, I probably wouldn't be this way. This is irreversible. I'm lucky that I can still eat while in this cell…and move about without melting anything."

"But how would you like to do that and more of what you used to without the fear of melting them? I know all about you. Your identity as Firefly, while not well-known to the general public, is well-known to the Gotham City Police Department. You're a criminal for hire, business saboteur, and pyrotechnics specialist. I'm more impressed with Firefly, not Phosphorus. At least he had somebody that, despite having recently broken up with him, still hopes for him to have the way to go back to what he used to be before his change."

"Blaze? Into what, exactly? A bug that likes to burn things in the hopes of catching a big score?"

"No. Well, yes, there is that, but a regular man with a sense of flare is more what she had in mind, other than the chemistry between you two."

The man then walked up to Phosphorus…and then right through him, leaving the man of fire surprised that he actually survived doing so, walking away from him and right to the door of his cell.

"How'd you do that?" Garfield asked him.

"Simple. I'm not human. Just humane."

Something about this guy made Garfield feel more intimidated.

"What are you?" He asked him.

"I'm a brother, in a spiritual sense that's literal." The man answered, leaning back against the cell door. "And I really must ask you this before I do anything else… Garfield…do you want to be the Firefly once more?"

"…In other news, earlier this morning at Arkham Asylum, inmate Garfield Lynns, AKA, Firefly, and later known as Phosphorus, was found in his cell restored to his pre-Phosphorus state," said a news media man on the television in Wayne Manor. "When interviewed, here's what Lynns had to say to everyone."

A recording of Firefly, apparently as human as he was before his transformation, showed up on TV and he said, "Last night, I received an unwelcome visitor that claimed to be a brother to everyone…and he made me an offer I couldn't turn down. Asked me if I wanted to be myself again…and I said 'yes'. Next thing I knew, I found myself on the ground, looking like I did before my accident."

"That's odd," said Dick, setting down his video game. "Even the Arkham security cameras didn't pick up anything on this mystery visitor. You think he was lying?"

Bruce Wayne didn't know how to answer that question. He was, however, certain of one thing: Whoever did show up to change Phosphorus back into Firefly was probably a lot more resourceful than even himself was in the present, as research on how to restore Firefly had just started. And while it sparked his curiosity, he doubted that he'd find out anything about who the mysterious visitor had been.

Even though the guy was a criminal, Brother Correction felt it was right to help restore him to his original state, reminding himself that it was for his girlfriend, who he knew in the future would mend the rift and reignite the spark that was between them. And it helped to see that there were some criminals in this world that needed to be dealt with in order to eliminate the greatest of harm they could've caused to innocent lives. There was Joker, Hugo Strange, Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Bane and others that he decided he would take care of in due time, but for now, it was just Firefly that needed to be taken care of…and taken care of, he was.

"Feed a cold and starve a fever," he uttered, returning to his personal domain to look upon the artifacts that he took from other worlds to ensure that they wouldn't be abused ever again, adding a new item to the collection: The phosphorus isotope that had transformed Firefly. "A small fire has the potential to become a firestorm if not dealt with soon."

Setting the isotope next to the display case containing a series of blood-red stones of various sizes, he sighed and wondered what other items he would acquire from the dimension he had recently visited.

_Epilogue_

The skies of Gotham City were all but quiet due to the constant buzzing of Firefly's jet pack, as he was trying to run away from the Batman again.

_Nowhere near blowing this city,_ Garfield thought, zigzagging across buildings, _but as long as I'm around, I don't intend to stop trying to._

And in the end, he couldn't help but smile under his helmet/mask.

The End.


End file.
